by Moulton, CD
"You know, not only are you a good storyteller, you're smart!" Mujat said. "That's precisely what happened. The palace soldiers were the criminals themselves. No one could do anything about it until King Narum decreed the police force and decreed that even the palace guard were subject to investigation and arrest and he wouldn't lift an eyebrow to help any convicted of a crime! He even decreed the police and soldiers were to be held to an even higher standard than the regular citizen."
"You see? It had to be," Z said. "Mujat, my friend, could you tell me where I might find accommodation for one of rather modest means? Perhaps a place where the, er – scenery – isn't, shall we say, dreary?"
"Say!" Mujat exclaimed. "Tell Captain Seemum about that broa ... charming lady. You know."
Z had to make up a couple more silly stories about supposed seductions where his sensitivities weren't so terribly bruised by an insensitive delightful feminine love child. He could combine the talents of Larj with his own flair for fantasy and stories he'd heard over the years and could fascinate even the robots. The talent for storytelling Larj had possessed was a truly great one. The moves and intonations of Himl added to the effect. He could see Thing seething, knowing this was all to bait it. It felt good to be able to do that to Thing, who usually was able to get the upper hand in those games.
Kit suggested they all go to the boat for the night and return the following day with samples for trade. Everyone agreed that such an idea was probably a good one, Z somewhat reluctantly. He would much prefer some other company than a fisherman and a buyer, but it WAS only for one more night.
They walked along the road toward the river and to the boat Maita had secreted among the overhanging trees not far from the docks. It had a shock beam and infrasonics to discourage anyone from bothering the vessel. This was an age where there was some residual fear of black magic so that wouldn't be too remarkable.
The boat was comfortable and was made along the lines of the commercial craft in the area. It was stained on the bottom and there were some barnacle-like deposits at the waterline to simulate its having been in the salt oceans for some time. As soon as they were aboard and knew definitely that they were secure Z asked what Tab and Kit had learned.
"It's obviously coming from that palace, which my built-ins say is the energy source. I'd say it's built around a spaceship or something such," Kit said. "We can't see what the object might be. The people are being helped in a lot of ways, but this is far more than they could hope to assimilate safely. It could destroy them."
"There are courts, which they can handle. There are police, which they can handle," Tab said. "There are mining methods which they can't. There are refineries here turning out high carbon steel and alloys. Those bars aren't your typical cast iron. There's electricity a good four hundred years too early and a crude form of radio that's being yanked ahead at a rate beyond possible comprehension to them. They’ve never had a vacuum tube, yet they're into transistors and silicon chips. There isn't one person in the native population who can understand the theories on which the theories are based to form the theories that will result in any of it!"
"The math is all there, but no one knows how it got there," Kit continued. "It's all explained in very clear, concise terms, mathematically, but no one knows what the MATH means or where it came from. These people are already becoming so confused they may never recover. We may be too late already – and all this started sixteen years ago. That beautiful city of carved marble was built in sixteen damned years! It should take these people fifty years to carve the marble for the palace alone! There's paper damned money! People poured in for several years and this sudden city in the middle of nowhere, lacking any logic for even existing, will have a million people in four more years – and that assuming all immigration stops right now."
"From what I heard and T Six detected they're drilling out there with a corundum-sided laser drill," Kit said. "The purpose? Geothermal steam to power a generator! Great colliding galaxies! They have COMPRESSION IGNITED FUEL INJECTED locomotives! There isn't one person on this planet other than the ones who built the damned things who has any conception of how they work. They have a damned OIL WELL out there to get the fuel and a REFINERY! Thing, Z, these aren't bad people, but they're being turned into another bunch of Immins as certainly as I'm sitting here!"
"We have to get into that palace," Z said. "My character resulted from some bandits attacking and killing a defenseless old man within sight of town. You saw all of that."
[ What you didn't see, Z, was that those bandits actually WERE attacked by other bandits after you left. We have to stop this! We're lucky it's all confined to this one city. If it begins to spread, well.... ]
*I can't handle this! Before any of this can be allowed to be exported we will have to ... stop it. There are three quarters of a million people in that city now. I like Mujat and even Seemum. Larj was very likeable. I can't handle something like this damned bullshit! I don't want this kind of responsibility. Wait until you see the rugs and tapestries these people weave! They're on a par with Parf in that art form, believe it or not!*
[ It's a matter of one city to save a world. I couldn't make that decision, either. ]
"Then we have to solve the problem here without resorting to that," Z said. "I agree. I couldn't be a part of anything like that. They could turn into something like the Immins, but they aren't now!"
"Well, just maybe an exceptionally skilled storyteller with a flair for the bawdy, if only by innuendo, can get us into the palace," Tab said.
It showed how truly they all were concerned that Thing nor any of the others ragged Z for the stories.
Strange Cargo
[ How odd! ]
"What?" Z asked.
The four were on their way back toward Royal City with a cart filled with various trade items the ships could supply quickly in large enough quantities that Kit and Tab would be accepted as bona fide traders. They had to guess at what might strike the fancy of the otherworlders they were sure were at the palace, but decided to just let it be known they could get any number of things. If they could get some definite idea of what the aliens needed they could extrapolate what they were doing here, hopefully. There had to be some reason anyone would take the chance of angering Emperor Maita on a restricted world and that reason should become apparent quickly enough.
[ I find it very odd there are no reports whatever of strange beings here. I don't know what it could mean. If there are any aliens other than ourselves here – and there are and have been for at least sixteen years – I'm sure someone would have seen them and remarked on them. ]
"I've been thinking a lot about that point," Kit answered. "Terrans, Bentans and a few others could pass for these people so long as no one saw them from up close. Z would look like one of the ones who're less hairy than the norm and a Bentan could pass for a fat, much less hairy rather coarse one with bad color."
"The hair and color are too easy to add," Tab pointed out. "They'd have to be from a culture with technology that would mean they wouldn't do what they're doing to this culture to copy the smell and such, though. If they could manage to stay far enough away or maybe to always be around other strong odors they could pull it off."
[ And keep it up for sixteen years while steering the entire culture? I find it hard to believe! ]
"So do I, but someone's obviously doing it," Z agreed. "What races could it be? Maybe we can work backwards. Bentans would do this and Jornians would. That's something to consider.
"It's not Terrans because they aren't out here.
"If we can decide who are here we might be able to figure what they're doing. There aren't blood diamonds of psiltripium on this world. Nothing else is rare enough to appeal much to anyone. Tapestries and rugs Maita mentioned, if they're really that good, would be worth it, but it wouldn't take ten lousy minutes for them to be identified simply because art on that scale is unique. This wouldn't be the place they'd be if it was art of any kind.
"The Acnians could do it using hypnosis, but they wouldn't. None of the reptilian races or the amphibians could hope to pull it off. The Cheeth wouldn't do it and the Lornans aren't out here.
"I'd say Bentans or Jornians – but WHY? And how are they staying disguised?
"There's energy in their ship so they could fastcom for help if they needed it. If it was a lost escape pod they would use the facilities to call for aid. There's the protector satellite that they could reach with a handmade crystal radio! They didn't. They have the energy. None of it adds up.
"T Six, did you try radio response? Are they capable of responding to, say, the FM bands or such they haven't given to these people yet?"
"I checked the emergency distress bands in everything. No response," T6 replied. "The energy I detected isn't com energy. There's no fastcom capable of working or we could detect the tracer beam."
[ We're getting close to town so I'll have to stop speaking, but I think maybe an escape pod from some ship. It hit too hard for the coms to survive – or heated up too much. There isn't the energy to use the gravitics to any extent and if it hit the atmosphere at too sharp an angle there was only energy for a safety shield. It could have burned up all the equipment in the pod. And none of that makes sense either. If it was that hard or hot it killed the passengers. Unless they're unbelievably stupid they'd make that crystal radio and reach the satellite. ]
"Hells! The first thing the survivors would have done when they had the chance would be to make a lightbeam distress signal and could be detected by the satellite in no more than ten nights on the outside," Z argued. "They've developed radio so they would've also sent radio distress signals. The emergency relays would soon detect them out here if ships on the trader routes didn't! They know all about the beacons and sensors so they could flash a signal that would be received with a damned key chain torch!
"Maita? Check for lost ships in the past twenty or so years."
*I did. None close enough that they could have reached this planet in a pod and no ships on these routes were lost. It could be a moder malfunction that shunted a ship in here from another route, but I can't find anything likely. We've definitely established it's not anyone who wants to be rescued. They're up to something.*
[ What about outlaw traders? ]
"They don't operate anywhere near these kinds of areas," TR replied. "I've checked everything we have on that subject. There's always the possibility one of their old cheap moders shunted them in here, and I guess we'll have to go with that as our most likely probability until we know something more. We're still stumped as to why they didn't make some kind of distress call. Maybe the fact they were reported is strange in itself?
"Who reported it, Maita? They never gave me the information."
*The teams searching for Immins found the energy source where it shouldn't be, but were able to determine it wasn't reasonable Immins were the problem so they reported it to Narn, the Fleet captain who's handling the search in this area and who called you. We would never have found it if we hadn't instituted that search. Narn scanned the world, decided something wasn't right and called you for lack of any other idea. She wasn't sure it was the kind of thing that should be reported to me. We'll have to stop the talking except among the three of you who should have speech. You're coming to the point where you could be overheard. Two bandit cruds approached the boat, but I frightened them off. They can't understand their panic so think there's a spell on the boat. These people respond very strongly to certain infrasonics*
Z came to a sudden halt and Kit almost knocked him over. He thought a minute, nodded, and grinned.
[ Damnit! You did that to drive me crazy! We can't talk anymore and I won't know if you sent that impulse deliberately or not! I wish you hadn't learned to send empathy so well! This had better not be your idea of a joke! ]
"I may have an idea," Z said. "We'll have to wait until we're in the palace to check it out. It's one way of explaining a lot of things. Believe me, the situation here isn't one I would use to play games. We have the very real possibility that the only way to stop this is to attack with everything we have and you know what that would mean to that city."
A rider on a mountbeast was approaching from the rear so Z, Tab and Kit made small talk until he was past. They were then too close to the city to risk the ships or Thing saying anything else aloud, though everyone there except Z could communicate silently. Thing was riding in the cart so it could be in contact with the relay on its floater, but would soon climb onto one of their shoulders and would be out of much of that, though it still had some contact within three meters of the floater. It could also maintain contact through direct contact with Tab or Kit.
They went into the city and stopped at the police compound to pick up the identification papers Seemum said would be ready for them. They joked awhile and Z told another slightly bawdy tale about a girl he'd met in the West Mountains. He wanted to cultivate Larj's talents as much as he could as a way to gain entrance into the palace. He was more and more sure getting inside that palace would be the best and quickest way to find the answers they must have.
Kit showed Seemum some of the things they had to trade – oils and spices and some very fine cloth – and was told that items of gold were things the king was very interested in lately. The pink gold, mostly, and white gold. Also green quartz from Narsjkland.
Tab said he was the luckiest person on all of Savaraj! He had pink gold! He had a sure source where he could get a lot of it if the price was right!
Maita would get a supply on board the boat very quickly for them so they could bargain anytime. They decided to stop at a local inn for dawnmeal, if a late one. It was a thing normal travelers would be expected to do. They sat at a table, ordered eggs, the local substitute for grits and a dark chocolate flavored hot drink that had a high caffeine alkaloid content.
"So our king wants rhodium and chrome," Kit said when they couldn't be overheard. "He can get by with trace amounts if he gets it this way, but there probably isn't any other way to get it."
"Moders?" Z asked. "Surely he doesn't have anything near the sophistication of equipment needed to make even the crudest type! Great exploding galaxies! The course on designing moders takes four years at University and we know DAMNED well nobody in that group is missing or has been! A University graduate who winds up missing anywhere would cause a galaxywide search!"
"Something else, I'm sure," Tab said. "Moders or fastcom are about all that use.... Oh, damn!"
"And disruptors," Z agreed dryly. "That's the only big weapon, inefficient as it is, they can produce, barring nuclears. BIG big weapons, that is. Anyone in the empire knows nuclear weapons would be detected and investigated immediately. No one would dare to take that kind of chance, no matter what kind of chances they took with other things. Maita has sensors on all the warning satellites to detect them. They could depend on nuclears being known about and reported within hours of developing any such thing.
"You know what that means?"
"It means they don't want to be found," Tab said. "The one sure way to get Maita's attention would be to set off a nuclear bomb out in that desert. With that.... They have to know about the restrictor satellite. They would've used that to contact EC sixteen years ago if they wanted to be found, meaning they're deliberately hiding here. We're damned sure right on that point!
"I think we're back to Immins, like it or not. They could pass for these people better than any of the rest of the races from a distance and they would have no thoughts for a picosecond about interfering with this culture."
"And Thing wants to point out that there would definitely be nuclear stockpiles," Tab said. "This is anything but the Immins' style of doing things here."
"Lord, I hope so!" Z cried fervently. "Maita and I would both go off the deep end if we found anything like them out here!"
They finished their meal and acted puzzled as to how to use the fancy paper money they had exchanged gold for at the police compound. Z noted they w
ere charged almost double the price listed on the menu. He took out a piece of paper and a graphite stick to figure, glared at the waiter, who was suddenly very nervous, and demanded, "You think you're the only one who knows numbers?
"You can keep what you've cheated us out of because we're going to spread the word you are a thief and your food is in small portions and is barely edible to top it! You made three kleperts sixty. It's going to cost you three thousand six hundred kleperts!
"Come, Kemat and Lape! We are to meet with the businessmen of the city and even with the court. We'll see exactly how clever this thief really is! Perhaps he'll learn as he sits on the streets begging that numbers and figuring are not rare arts anymore."
They stalked out with the proprietor trying to get them to take their money back and crying it was a mistake. Kit turned to him on the street. "A mistake, it was!" he said loudly. "When you steal from honest people you lose the trade of honest people. A thief will soon have only thieves for customers. Think hard on it! Soon, everyone who goes in there will be as dishonest as you are! You'd best hire someone to keep guard on what few things you have. You won't have them long when all your customers are stealing from you as you steal from them.
"I grow tired of your mouthings! Begone!"
Tab and Z stood close beside Kit. The man looked up at the three of them, one old man in exceptionally good physical shape and two very large younger men. He turned to slink back into his inn. Several people were watching. They hooted at him as he went back inside.
Thing climbed up to sit atop Tab's head and to bend over to peer into his eyes a moment, then it settled more comfortably, wrapping a tentacle across his eyes and another across his mouth. This was a crowd-pleaser that they had used in several other places. People found humor in such antics almost universally.
